Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Some of the people sniping at Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series as being equivalent to Harry Potter for angsty teenyboppers except not particularly well-written made me stop and go: “Wait, Harry Potter was well-written?” (This is clearly because I am such a superior reader with superior tastes in all my literature, and anyone who thinks Harry Potter is awesome is wrong. And stupid. And racist. And a killer of puppies. Just so we’re clear about where I come from when I make statements of aesthetic judgment.) My pointless and incredibly silly snobbery when it comes to children’s and YA fiction aside, what struck me about some of the comments in Pharyngula that dealt with Twilight was the offhand dismissal of the series, not merely because they weren’t especially well-written (I myself couldn’t finish Twilight, and in that regard I’m totally in agreement that it’s the Harry Potter of vampire teenyboppers), but because they were obviously written for a teenage female audience in mind. There’s much casual contempt for literature that deals with the emotional and the female, and I see it as a logical extension from a culture that devalues female experiences in general; that teenage female romantic experiences in particular are singled out as being especially frivolous and assumed to be Not Worthy of Serious Thought isn’t anything new, but it still chafes at me when I see it pop up.

I am also fascinated--FASCINATED--that Harlequin has become shorthand for romance, all romance, the way it has, since books published under the Harlequin/Silhouette imprint cover only a very specific niche of romance. It’d be as if, in attempting to define ice-cream, somebody didn’t address the ingredients, or the characteristics that make ice-cream, well, icy and creamy, but instead chose to refer to it solely by a rather slapdash association of flavor and brand name, sometimes resulting in rather jarring juxtapositions if you know ice-cream well. “My mom’s a huge fan of Breyer’s Phish Food, but I just don’t get it--the thought of eating bits of unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough in ice-cream makes me want to hurl,” sez somebody, and it’s all I can do to not leap up like an obnoxious bastard and say “DUDE, Phish Food is Ben and Jerry’s, and for the love of God, it doesn’t have chocolate chip cookie dough anywhere in it, and really, YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T EAT ICE-CREAM AND THEREFORE ARE UNQUALIFIED TO COMMENT ON WHAT WE’RE EATING, AND I’M GOING TO JUMP ON YOUR HEAD BECAUSE YOUR NEXT COMMENT IS OBVIOUSLY GOING TO BE HOW EVERYONE WHO EATS ICE-CREAM IS A FAT WHORE. SEE HOW I’M JUMPING ON YOUR HEAD? JUMP. JUMMMMMP.”

Right. Now that I’m thoroughly craving Phish Food (AND have successfully squelched my desire to act like an obnoxious bastard on somebody else’s comment board--at least this time): PZ’s question at the end intrigues me. Where DID this surge come from?Because people attributing the surge to Twilight are wrong. Twilight hit just as vampires and paranormal romance were huge and getting even bigger. JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood had hit the scene like a hundred-khilitohn bhomb the September previous to Twilight‘s publication. I’m not necessarily interested in tracing the whole trajectory to its source, because I think the current paranormal romance scene is not a direct reaction to, say, the disturbing eroticism of Dracula--I think Anne Rice’s novels are a better candidate for that.

Personally, I think the current paranormal romance boom is the direct descendant of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, which is more urban fantasy than a creature driven by older, more Victorian mythologies and sensibilities.

Regardless of what the Anita Blake series has become, and regardless what people may think, the popularity of the books and its unholy progeny is due to more than the thrill of reading taboo-busting inter-species nookie; somebody in the comments quoted a Powell’s Books employee defining the genre as “women committing every imaginable act of lust and perversion with vampires, werewolves, demons, Lovecraftian tentacled rape gods, basically anything you can imagine as long as it’s not a normal human man"--which made me go HAAAA, but also made me go “Oh, come ON, judging all of paranormal romance just because you were forced to page through the Merry Gentry series is hardly fair. I mean, taboo-busting inter-species nookie is pretty hot and definitely a factor in the popularity--and really, God bless our prurient motivations, because so much brilliant art would have gone (and continue to go) unexpressed if it weren’t for horny artists sublimating their unspeakable urges in beautiful ways, and I really don’t see any inherent wrongness in reading something to get your rocks off (but oh God that’s another topic for another time). But slapping the “It’s the Sex, Stupid” label on the phenomenon is too simple, and falls into the old “Psh, it’s porn, that’s why they like it” dismissal that covers everything and explains very little.

My theory is: it’s also about women, and putting women in control, and how we’re still not comfortable enough to put it in real-life/realistic fiction terms yet.

The surge of demand for women in a dominant role--as pursuers and protectors and warriors--has been a long time coming, and I think it says something interesting about us and our level of comfort with and/or inability to suspend disbelief about women owning a certain sort of cultural power that most of the asskicking happens in Not Quite Earth, and that many of the heroines are Not Quite Human. The current crop of paranormal romances owe a lot to Anita Blake, but they owe much to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, too.

And now I’ve pretty much reached the extent of my over-thinking about this particular bit of romance, it’s your turn: feel free to overthink paranormal romances in the comments. Or, you know, don’t. Do you read it mostly--even solely--for the hot sex and because you have a hard-on for angsty immortals? Sing it loud, and sing it proud.

In case, like me, you’ve been under a rock for awhile (how’s your rock? Mine’s awesome!) and haven’t read or heard of this series, here’s the nutshell: klutzy teen Bella Swan moves to exceptionally small gloomy town in the Pacific Northwest to live with her father, who is so absent he might as well not be a parent so much as a chaperone who falls asleep or, in this case, goes fishing a lot. Gloomy, Abercrombie-gorgeous Hottie McVampire Edward is playing at being a high school student with his adopted family, and seems profoundly disturbed by her presence, only to experience equally profound mood swings which allow him to pay extreme attention to her. Commence panting courtship.

I do get the elements that are so sultry and seductive about the plotline: he’s over the moon about her; he can’t stop thinking about her. He’s mysterious, he’s dark and gloomy, he’s like angst and sexy rolled up in a sparkly taco shell. He’s isolated and longing for her, yadda yadda yadda. And I can see why some readers adore the plotline where she reveals him and gains solo entrance into his world, is the only one to make him smile, etc.

But what I don’t get is the degree of isolation that accompanies that entrance. I can’t even explain how uncomfortable their self-imposed alienation makes me feel. The former angsty teenager in my shriveled, echoing heart is all over it, because dude. Hot angst biscuit wants her and only her and after six weeks let’s make declarations of loooooove. He’ll watch over her while she sleeps, he’ll sneak into her home, he’ll insert himself silently into every part of her world. Former Angsty Sarah can see why that’s incredibly seductive, especially when one is feeling lonely and without anyone who truly understands.

Currently Adult Sarah, who is a lot older and one would hope marginally wiser than F.A.S. is majorly squicked out. The imbalance of power between these two characters is significant, and his moodswings don’t help much. He’s annoyed, he’s irritated, he’s blissful! He’s sparkly, he’s angry, he’s irritated again. But what really bothers me is the degree to which Bella subsumes her identity at every turn. She inserts herself into her father’s home by doing the things that will make him happy (cooking, laundry, making herself scarce when he wants to go fishing and is troubled by feelings of potential parental responsibility) with minimal fuss. She inserts herself into Edward’s world by doing the same - the biggest show of spine she has (so far, I’m on page 3,546,775 of 7,532,668) is asking a shit ton of questions, but mostly only with his permission to do so. She’s a mismatched dichotomy of the teen no one notices and the teen everyone notices and it doesn’t fit well on her, nor does it make for an interesting character. Even her name as a reference to her character is klunky: Bella Swan? COME ON NOW AND I MEANT IT.

Meyer’s writing is nothing to hyperventilate over, in my opinion, except for its tendency to hyperventilate in moments of drama. That said, I don’t necessarily see the point in condemning a book and saying no one should read it, it’s awful, omg, alert the vampires that a terrible insult has been laid upon them. Meyer definitely taps into the dark, mysterious tortured hero, one of my personal favorite archetypes, but the degree to which Edward’s intensity is focused on Bella, and the degree to which he shifts in mood and action (he’s here! He’s gone! He’s back! Whee! Do vampires get frequent flyer miles because damn, he gets elite status in, like, a week.) doesn’t seem to level out. And while Edward is a 9.0 on the Richter scale in terms of mood variations, Bella mopes from meh to meh. I’m curious about the movie, simply because the actress playing her is exceptionally talented, and could revive the character to a more vibrant portrayal. The book’s version of Bella and Edward reads to me like pairing lukewarm milk with a Red Savina pepper.

My wishlist for this book is a mile long in terms of things I wished had been a little different, a little better, a little more sparkly, if you’ll pardon the pun, but mostly I wish I could understand what it is about the book that sends so many people over the moon in terms of their adoration and pursuit of more. Either way, if this book makes people sunny and moony at the same time, more happiness to them. Whatever floats your boat. Or sparkles your vampire.

Twilight fits that mold. Bella must become complicit in the secrecy of Edward’s world, and in fact she’s the one who presses to adopt his worldview – by becoming a vampire herself. Within Edward’s family, Bella is special merely because she is Edward’s choice and is absorbed into his family simply on that basis, leaving her father’s home for his, literally and figuratively, following the traditional pattern that takes a virginal woman from her father’s possession and guardianship to her husband’s, do not pass go, do not collect $200. 

What set me on the Edward-as-Alpha road to much pondering were the interactions in Twilight after Edward has decided to cease ignoring Bella. Every time he shows up after he’s decided to talk to Bella, he rescues her, and immediately following sweeps in and manages every detail of her life. Moreover, that first occasion of rescue is telling; it comes at a moment of great vulnerability for Bella.

She’s alone at home on a snowy day, convinced she’s going to fall down on the icy sidewalks or wreck her truck on the roads. But she realizes after she gets to school that her father had put chains on her tires early in the morning, before he left and before she woke up, purely to keep her safe. As Belly realizes that her father was quietly watching out for her, an experience she has little familiarity with, in swoops Edward- literally – to save her by bending flying vans to his will. It’s a subtle moment of underscoring: Bella literally travels from her father’s care to Edward’s care in that moment. From then on, Edward saves her over and over again, sweeping in and managing every detail for her.  Her father’s role is merely as a figure in the household, and readers of Midnight Sun know that Edward was as much a figure in that household as Charlie, whether Charlie or Bella knew it or not. Consider the sequence of Edward and Bella’s interactions:

She gets nearly crushed by a van. He saves her life.

She faints in science class. He carries her to the nurse, then gets her excused from classes so he can bring her home.

She is followed by creepy guys in a coastal town. He shows up after reading the thoughts of the villains and rescues her at the last moment before they act on their intentions.

Edward’s Alpha Heroism is solidified by the degree to which he micromanages Bella after those three rescues. He knows whats best. But he takes it one step further by becoming an overseer in her life. Because he doesn’t sleep, he can literally stay with her all the freaking time, aside from when he’s not hunting, and even then he worries about her safety. He makes sure she eats; he watches her as she sleeps.  He pretty much rebuilds his entire day around being with her. He meets her after class, he follows her home, and her day in the Twilight narration becomes measured by when she’s with Edward vs. when she’s not.  He pays a great deal of lip service to the idea of keeping her safe but it’s more a taming of the Alpha Hero, on speed with added crack and angst, because not only does Edward hover over her and pretty much glue himself to her side, but she wants nothing more than to be with him. Every. Minute. All. Day. He drinks blood to survive; she drinks the experience of being with him to avoid depresson.

He tames his desire to kill her and eat her, but he still consumes her, which is the point that made me the most uncomfortable, but may also serve as a primary reference as to why Edward is so alluring a character. While Edward and Bella don’t knock boots in Twilight, Edward manages to insert himself figuratively into her life and become the center of every moment of Bella’s life – and she’s all for it. More than one person commented to me privately after reading my review that the manner in which Bella subsumes her identity and becomes absorbed by Edward almost symbiotically made them as readers profoundly uncomfortable, because it echoed abusive relationships they witnessed or experienced. It wasn’t romantic for them, that totalitarian management - it was creepy.

Plus there’s the fact that Edward doesn’t really do anything else with his endless days.  The only one who does anything with that whole vampiric sleeplessness is Carlisle. He doesn’t need sleep? He’s a butt-trillion years old with light years of medical experience? Holy shit, he’s the best ER doctor ever. Imagine what patient lessons he could relate (thanks to Taylor for the link).

But Edward doesn’t DO anything aside from attend school in presence only, play baseball, and drive cars rather quickly. He plays music but he’s already excellent – a virtuoso, in fact. Bella, for all intents and purposes, becomes his hobby. Being near her, whether she knows it or not, is what he does. But because he has more of a life and routine than she does, she is absorbed into his world, partly because she has no real life in Forks herself, and partly because the secrecy of their society demands it.

The biggest characteristic of an Old Skool Alpha Hero is The Rape of the Heroine, which doesn’t literally occur in Twilight, though one could argue that James’ biting Bella could be interpreted as rape, and Edward’s refusal to change her into a vampire as the refusal to do so. Edward does invade Bella’s privacy and home without her permission in order to watch her, and if his commentary is to be believed, to try to resist killing her. That leashed intention to kill, I think, can be interpreted the same as the leashed intent to rape. But in a strange turn, Bella begs for that violation: she wants to be the same as Edward, and she wants him to kill her and change her.

Regardless of who asks for what form whom, Edward’s possession and possessive attitude are alarmingly Alpha. When anyone—his brothers, random serial rapists hiding in small towns, or another vampire—threatens the human he considers his own, Edward goes berserk. His possession of Bella, even in his mind, is complete and total, and her willingness to follow that possession, since he knows what’s best for her, casts her in a sheepish model that I never recovered from as I read Twilight.

Reading Midnight Sun’s first 12 chapters (while I try to intersperse reading The Jewel of Medina at the same time, speaking of going berserk) hasn’t helped much. Edward’s self-loathing is evident, but the “I’m not good enough for her but she’s MINE MINE MINE EDWARD SMASH” attitude reinforces my suspicions: that Edward is an old-skool Alpha male hero in the classic model, dipped in sparkles and dispensed to a younger audience. Perhaps that explains his allure - there are many, many readers who adore the Alpha model in their romance hero, and Edward is no different.

In this corner: Suzanne Vega discussing the remixes and interpolations of her song Tom’s Diner (duh duhduh duh, duh duhduh duh, duh duh duhduh na duhduh na...) and how she’s embraced them, even released compilations of various artists’ versions of the same song:

15 years later, “Tom’s Album” continues to sell. People think it is a bootleg and sidle up to me whispering, “Have you seen this? Someone put this together.”

“Yes. That someone was me.”

However, it was a logistical nightmare to administrate. I had to go back to all the people who had taken the song without permission, and ask their permission . . . to use their version of my song!

While still a defender of copyright protection - Vega met with the original remixers of the song, DNA, and arranged for a flat fee agreement after DNA had remixed the song in 1990 and sold it out of a corner store - her perspective is interesting, particularly in the context of isolation in which she wrote the song itself. (Also, the part about Vega’s role in the invention of the mp3 is freaking fascinating.)

And in this corner, we have Annie Proulx, who is pissed as hell about fanfic regarding her characters in Brokeback Mountain, particularly when they send her the product of their fanfic labors. Her response is rant-tastic, because she’s horrified that readers would rewrite her story with a happy ending, stating that:

There are countless people out there who think the story is open range to explore their fantasies and to correct what they see as an unbearably disappointing story....

Most of these ‘fix-it’ tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead after all, or having the two men’s children meet and marry, etc., etc. Nearly all of these remedial writers are men, and most of them begin, ‘I’m not gay but….’ They do not understand the original story, they know nothing of copyright infringement—i.e., that the characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are my intellectual property....

Proulx then states that she thinks that the fanfic rewrites are motivated by the male writers’ feeling that they can write the story better than she, a woman, could. I don’t know about that, as it seems like a huge leap of guesswork to assume the motivations of a fanfic writer, but her perspective as to the ownership of the characters and the ending of their story is different from Vega’s eager collecting of variations, covers, and remixes of her song. I’d love to hear a debate with the two of them discussing intellectual property, and how fans interact with their artistic creations.

What do you think? Would you be irritated with someone taking your characters and writing fanfic about them? Do you think someone who seizes your characters and rewrites the ending is “exploring their fantasies” in a manner which you find objectionable? Or would you collect them for your own amusement? Where do you fall on the Vega/Proulx continuum?

Thanks to Karen and December for the links.

Her 2: “No, C.S. Lewis. A Guide for the Merely Christian. The sections on greed and suffering are really prescient, too.”

[Thanks to Jen for the link]